‘Worst Roommate Ever’ Turns an Interesting Premise Into a Tired Formula

Tony Sokol

Sharing an apartment, house, or floor with a stranger is always a potentially frightening situation. Cohabitation of any kind can become claustrophobic in the wrong situations. The unstable landscape of real estate over the pandemic created thousands of mini-nightmares for people who thought they had some kind of safety deposit on reliable living arrangements. Netflix and Blumhouse’s “Worst Roommate Ever” gives more reasons to question even the most perfect Craigslist ad. 

Each of the four stories in the five-episode true crime docuseries are genuinely frightening. No one is as they seem, when we first are introduced. The family and the victims see harmless roommates turning dangerous when each installment opens. Then we find, in most of the cases, the clues were everywhere. 

The villains include a sweet old lady serial killer, a rejected suitor, a devilish conman, and a squatter from hell and the hell of homelessness. Events unfold from the victim’s perspective. The series focuses squarely on the repercussions, keeping the mood ominous through deeply suspenseful, and often incongruous, music. It occasionally comes across as exploitative. Every story has similar arc and narrative. Each segment contains cliffhangers. Throughout the dramatic formulas, the victims, their families, and their eye witness accounts of how the cases are closed remain at the center of the frame. The series features in-depth interviews, and the rage and grief mingle into compelling stories, but the sameness of the storytelling keeps the details at surface level, keeping the audience at a distance.

Along with archival footage and newsreels, the crime recreations are done through hand-drawn animated sequences, which occasionally diverge emotionally from the narration. The series also includes contemporary interviews with the investigating law enforcement. It is a relief not to see the usual detective work overtake the victims, but the stories would feel fuller if there were more background on the bad roommates. By skipping over the details, the audience gets a sense of evil from players who have no reason to do the things they are doing. The motivations are elusive. We get the briefest of overviews on childhoods, mental illness, addictions or contributory factors, if any. Much of the retellings of the crimes feel rushed, as do the conclusions. The system is easy to exploit. The law doesn’t care about squatters. Some people will always fall through the cracks. Others will be found buried in the lawn. Ultimately, it feels too familiar.

In the first episode, “Call Me Grandma,” the bad roommate is Dorothea Puente, whose story has been documented on “World’s Most Evil Serial Killers,” and other true crime documentary series. It is a very complex case, with multiple victims. It should have gotten more space. Even the uncovering of the human remains, the skin which looks like beef jerky and the detached femur bones, are hastily cataloged and dispatched. 

“Be Careful of the Quiet Ones” and “Marathon Man,” the middle two episodes, are fairly indistinguishable from the contemporary spate of true crime saturation. Part of the suspense which comes in “Worst Roommate Ever,” is misleading. In the second episode “Be Careful of the Quiet Ones,” the early sequences make it appear no one in the missing woman Maribel’s family had any idea of what is going on until she doesn’t show up for a softball game. But as the story plays out, we see her sister knew things were happening, and the world begins closing in before the 911 call is made to the police. Once the pattern has been established, the details tend to get more obvious with every installment.

The final two installments, “Roommate Wanted,” tell one story, which was reported in detail in “New York” magazine, and inspired the series title. It is the only narrative which gives the space needed to the proceedings. The build-up is allowed to breathe, even exploring the history of squatting. But it is still only half the story. People are forced into homelessness, but there is no exit strategy even hinted at in the dialogue. The suspense builds appropriately, along with the character development, or more accurately, degeneration.

In a world where one man’s ceiling is another man’s floor, the show captures a very real fear, and adequate paranoia. Who can you trust as a tenant? Who can you trust as a renter? The monster is already in the house. While the series occasionally captures the oddities and otherness of the worlds these people live, each episode feels more superficial as it goes on. It’s hard to keep things fresh in real crime, just ask the cop who turned over the double rug in the first episode and almost reeled over from the stench. “Worst Roommate Ever” is filled with thrilling moments, and will keep viewers’ attention throughout, but it’s nothing we haven’t seen on Investigation Discovery, or even Netflix itself.

“Worst Roommate Ever” begins streaming March 1 on Netflix.